Articles by Ben Bernanke

Last week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the central bank would launch an unprecedented form of quantitative easing. This "new and improved" iteration of money printing will be without limit and duration. The Fed Head launched QE III ($40 billion of MBS purchases every month) on September 13th and stated that it will remain in effect until the labor market "improves substantially." He also promised that, "The Committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage back...

With another syringe of quantitative easing being injected into the U.S. economy's bloodstream, Ben Bernanke is giving the markets their liquidity fix. The Federal Reserve's action reaffirmed my stance I've reiterated on several occasions that the governments across developed markets have no fiscal discipline, opting for ultra-easy monetary policies to stimulate growth instead.

Financial markets rallied last week as mainly driven by the Fed's announcement of QE3. While commodities had benefited the most among the asset classes in QE1 and QE2, we think the positive impacts this time would reduce due to higher price levels now compared with a few years ago, less supportive macroeconomic outlook and deteriorating impacts that quantitative easing would have on the economy and asset prices. Among the commodities under our coverage, we believe precious metals would get th...

Ron Paul's campaign against the Federal Reserve had made some headway last summer, but even Republicans who dislike the Fed's decision to start a new round of easing aren't as drastic as him in attacking the central bank

With yesterday's Fed decision and press conference, Chairman Ben Bernanke finally and decisively laid his cards on the table. And confirming what I have been saying for many years, all he was holding was more of the same snake oil and bluster. Going further than he has ever gone before, he made it clear that he will be permanently binding the American economy to a losing strategy. As a result, September 13, 2012 may one day be regarded as the day America finally threw in the economic towel.

Think of all the possibilities! They are unlimited especially after the Federal Reserve used the nuclear option with open ended QE3D and an extension of the low interest rate pledge for another year! Commodity bulls will be dancing the twist as the music plays on with the Fed buying the long end and selling the short end in what can only be described as explosively bullish for the markets. Ben Bernanke Rightly said that this had nothing to do with politics and the Fed can't do it alone! The ...

Markets like what they heard from Fed Governor Ben Bernanke yesterday and the extension in the risk rally has gathered speed this morning. After a slight pullback where we saw the dollar stabilise earlier, it is once again coming under pressure. However, the dollar index is down nearly 6% since the end of July and it is starting to look extremely oversold so be aware of a sharper pullback in the near term. This would not mean that the rally is over, merely that the market has over extended itsel...

Market sentiment was lifted as the Fed announced purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities, starting tomorrow at a total of US$23B through the end of the month and then at a rate of US$40B per month for an open-ended period. The Fed also decided to extend operation twist through the year end and pledged to leave interest rates at exceptionally low level until mid-2015. Financial markets rallied with the DJIA and the S&P 500 indices gaining +1.55% and +1.63% respectively. In the commodity se...

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke offered a spirited defense Thursday of the bank's decision to launch QE3, as the central bank's third round of quantitative easing is known, amid speculation that the initiative may have been politically motivated as the presidential election nears.

Here are two places to get a live stream of the news conference that Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, will hold today following the conclusion of a two-day meeting by the central bank's rate-setting committee.

The greenback is struggling to hold its ground on Thursday, with the Dow Jones-FXCM U.S. Dollar Index (Ticker: USDOLLAR) paring the overnight advance to 9,840, and the reserve currency may weaken further during the North American trade as the FOMC is widely expected to ease monetary policy further in September.

The bar has been raised and now it is up to the Federal Reserve to meet or exceed expectations. You see because many in the market place feel that some form of quantitative easing may be in the market to give the Fed's soon to be announced stimulus plan its best chance to work they are going to have to wow us!!!

The U.S. stock index futures point to a lower open Thursday as investors maintained a cautious mode ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting in which there is the likelihood of another round of quantitative easing measures to be announced to invigorate the economy.

Most of the Asian markets made gains Thursday as investors remained hopeful waiting for the policymakers in the U.S. to announce monetary easing measures to boost the global economy and rejuvenate the economic growth momentum.

After months of anticipation, markets finally received closure over the Europe's permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, after attempts to derail the implementation at it's inception.

The European recession, which continues to steepen, has already caused the ECB's Mario Draghi to promise to purchase unlimited quantities of bonds with duration of 1-3 years on the secondary market. Mr. Draghi plans to "sterilize" these purchases by auctioning one-week term deposits to banks. But there are two problems with this form of sterilization. The first is there is no guarantee that private banks will hand over all of their newly printed money back to the ECB. Instead, they may ...

Markets have been talking about QE3 for two years. Now, after a sovereign credit downgrade, the near collapse of the European financial system, and facing an anemic recovery that has only marginally helped heal the carnage in the labor and housing markets, the vast majority of financial pundits believe QE3 this week is "pretty much a given."

Asian stock markets rose Wednesday as investors remained hopeful that policymakers in the U.S. and China would announce monetary easing measures to boost the global economy and rejuvenate economic growth momentum.